“The United States has survived 47 recessions in all, and since the Great Depression we’ve never gone more than 10 years without one,” said the HBO host, adding that a “recession is coming” not because he is “rooting for it,” but because of Republican policies like the recent tax cuts, trade policy, bank deregulation, and undermining the Affordable Care Act.

“This made me a bigger threat to our national security than Canada,” Maher said, noting conservatives like Fox News host Laura Ingraham and others who criticized him for his previous comments.

“Some things are more important than money and one of them is living in a country that reasonably resembles the one that existed 1776 to 2016,” said Maher. “In a situation this grave, it is not crazy to use economic manipulation. That’s what sanctions are. We pinch countries in the pocket books so that they act better. Just think of this as sanctions against ourselves.”

“Recessions happen and we always recover, but fallen republics don’t,” Maher concluded. “I’m not rooting for a disaster. The disaster is already here. If a recessions is what it takes to make Donald Trump not so cute anymore, than bring it on.”